


Dominion.

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Author's Favorite, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-26
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:32:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is Methos and he is yours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dominion.

**Author's Note:**

> Though they go mad they shall be sane,  
> Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;  
> Though lovers be lost love shall not;  
> And death shall have no dominion.  
> -Dylan Thomas, And Death Shall Have No Dominion

You, too, are not the man you used to be. Once, you would have ridden to the ends of the earth, burning everything in your path and sowing the ground behind you with salt, to find him. Once, you would have found him and taken his horse until he broke his silence and screamed at you, and you would have let his words fall over you like rain, while your heart beat like a drum beat, heralding his presence. _Home, home, home._

Once, you knew, Methos bends his knee to no man he will not later kill. You have seen him break, but you have never seen him bend. Methos serves no god in heaven and no god on earth. Methos, your brother, snarled into your life and grabbed you by the hair, and dragged you into freedom, and you never looked back. You never looked back.

He is your Methos. He took you out of darkness and brought you into the light. He taught you everything you ever needed to know. And he left you, as one lover to another, and you followed, as a priest to his god. You have followed him through countries and continents and time itself.

You have never stopped, not in your heart. In your dreams, you have been searching for him every moment of every day; with every breath you draw into your chest, you have searched for Methos. But he was never there to be found. And so, eventually, you stopped. You know, if Methos still lives, he still runs. Like the curvature of the earth, you know, eventually, he will run back to you.

When you find him once more, he screams at you, still, and he attacks you, because he does not know what you know, he thinks you mean to harm him. He thinks you mean to tear his heart out. He thinks you mean to destroy him utterly and leave only dust behind.

He thinks you hate him. And, of course, you do, but that has never been a barrier to loving him.

You hate the mask he wears in this age, so permanent and rough; you prefer his face blue, so you can wash it off and see him truly. You hate his choice of companions, for they make him weak. They make him less. They make him bend.

Once, Methos luxuriated in slaughter and the fraternity of survivors. But he has learned to regret what he used to prize above all else, he has learned to hate his very being, he has learned to dare the world to destroy his memory and leave only dust behind.

He dares you to destroy him.

But you know his strength, even if he does not. You know his resolve, even if he does not. You know him of old, and he can never hide from you. You see his mask and how it forms; you can see beneath it from the spaces in between.

He is only weak because he has made himself weak. He is only scared because he allows him to be scared. He panics and he makes mistakes, mistakes you have never before seen your brother make, because it is tearing him in twain. Duncan MacLeod is tearing him in twain.

Your Methos of old did not know doubt. He knew himself and he knew his brothers, and together, you rejoiced in the daybreak and the sunset, in the river and the desert, in the mountain and in the valley. Your Methos of old was sly and cruel and cunning. You see him inside this new one, this abomination that MacLeod has created, and you see him, still, always, forever, screaming at you.

He wants you to let him out.

And so you do. You take Methos and you draw him close. You speak to him soft words of yesteryear, you kiss his neck with your blade, it will be enough. You have found your Methos before, trapped behind in prisons of the mind, and you have drawn him out. You have always drawn him out, and he rides beside you once more, and you scream into the night, your hearts beating as one, together, for he is your brother and you are his and there are none who can come between what has been sworn in blood and death.

You know that he tells himself he is fighting you, but you know he is not. If Methos wanted you dead, you would have been dead at the bottom of a well millennia ago. If Methos wanted you dead, he would have shot you and finished it. You have turned your back on him and he struck, but not to kill. Oh, no, never to kill. For he is your Methos and you will always be his Kronos and he may disown you, but he will never kill you, for you and he are one. None may come between you.

He has not attacked you since; you know he will not, ever again. You have shown him you find no pity in his weakness, and you will never pity him. You will love him always and hate him always, but you will never pity him, not Methos. He took you from their hands and salved your wounds and bandaged your eye and the first thing you saw in your new life was he. Through caked blood and fear, you saw Methos.

And you will never forget the words he spoke to you that day, when he calmed you like a frightened horse, and gave you your name. You will never forget how he looked, standing above you, the barrier between you and your past. You will never forget.

He may forget himself, but you never will. You will always see him for who he is.

He tells himself he fights you, but he fights only himself. He tells himself he does not want this, but you see his eyes light up and his lips curl with cruelty, and you know your brother lives. Your brother still lives.

The mask he wears will fade away into ashes. It is only pretence, after all. Your Methos is a master of illusions and deceit, but he has never turned them on you and he never will. When your Methos jailed you, he did it to your face; you knew his hand and it held your freedom. It was his to give and his to take away, and it was his to remind you of your place, his to remind you that he served at your side only by his choice. Your Methos will stab his enemies in the back on long, dark nights, but he will never hide from you, he never could, he never will.

He is your Methos and so when he shouts at you, it falls over you like rain, and you listen as he tells you everything that is wrong with your planning, and more, and you know he is speaking out of love, but out of weakness as well, for your Methos never could resist tearing your plans to shreds and building empires out of what remains. He builds your plan for you and it is better than you could have imagined, and you need him, you will always need him. You have tried so many times over the centuries to replace him, but you never could. He has no superiors, no equals, no gods on heaven or earth, and there is no one like your Methos. No one understands you like he does, no one can free you like he does. Methos will plot and plan and then he will point to the horizon, yours for the taking.

But it is out of weakness as well, for Methos has been tamed and made weak in this age, and you see this. You see how he has been trained like a dog to be the traitor in your mist. He has been taught to sit and beg for scraps at the table of redemption, he has been taught to serve that god, and the knowledge burns in your stomach like acid.

Methos will betray you. Someone trained him too well.

But there is time, there is always time. You have freed your brother before from these prisons, you will do it again. You will pick the locks behind his eyes and take him into the night. You will strip him of his defenses and give him his sword. He will bring you to your knees and you will kneel at his feet and give him his freedom from these monsters of the night who prey on him, turning his dreams into nightmares, his desires into shame.

And you will rise as one, together.

You will ride into the night once more, together.

He has been made soft in this age, and so you tell him you will kill him if he leaves you, that you will hunt him down, and so he does not leave you, and so he stays. You know your Methos will always choose life and so he stays, and you draw him out. You see his leash and you see it held by Duncan MacLeod and so you push and you give him his sword. You know the slave is never truly free until he has killed his master. Methos will never be free until he has stood on MacLeod's body and drunken of his Quickening. Methos will stand, victorious and free. You will give him that.

Your Methos of old has never bended knee to anyone he will not later kill. And he is your Methos, you will never doubt that, and so he must kill MacLeod. It must be him, and no other. As Caspian killed his jailer, so will Methos, and you will stand together, free, as brothers.

And you will give him the world on its knees before him.

Of you all, Methos is the one suited to rule. He has the plotting, scheming, subtle mind so suited to the task. Caspian and Silas are destruction personified, but Methos is not a battle ax, he is a knife in the back. Caspian and Silas want to destroy the world, but Methos would remake it in his own image, if given the chance. If given the opportunity. If given the power.

You will give this to him.

You will free him of his shackles and take the leash from off his neck, and you will take him by the hand and you will lead him to the precipice, and spread below him will be all the kingdoms of the world, his for the taking. You will spread him out a banquet of the nations of the world and he will reach. He is Methos and he will rule the world, as he was born to, as he has ruled your world from the moment he reached down into the fray and pulled you out, still struggling, still bleeding, and his horse thundered beneath you, hooves beating like drum beats, taking you to salvation, taking you home.

And you will be there with him every step of the way, leading him down that path. He will rule at your right hand as he was always meant to, the schemer, the plotter, the power behind the throne. He is the teeth in your smile and he will never bend his knee to you. You will stand together as one and you will rule together as one, and it all shall be as you have dreamt it.

You will build him his dream kingdom and give him a home, and all the power of the world. And it shall be glorious.

And, yet. And, yet, he hesitates. When you look to him now, you see him, standing above you, the barrier between you and your future. And so you draw him closer. You decide on pity. You will make this easy. It does not matter how MacLeod dies so long he does. It does not matter why Methos stays, so long as he does. It does not matter, none of it. You know better than anyone else that it is the ends that are important, not the means.

And so you draw Methos close. You feel him shudder under your hands, the last spasms of a man shackled so tightly, he cannot imagine life without iron against his skin. You will unwind the chains; you need only the time. You will have time. You will always have time.

You do not see him splintering beneath your touch until he is crouched before Silas, one knee touching the ground. And you know.

You know.

You know MacLeod has won. He has bested you. He has stolen your Methos, he has wrapped him in chains and bound him in despair. He has taken and twisted him and trained him in perversions. He has made Methos regret all that he once needed to live. He has trained him to hate himself and his very nature, trapped into a prison so deep and dark he cannot see the sun.

But no matter; you have freed Methos before, he will free himself again. He cannot live forever under another's rule. You know that well enough. Methos will rise up and destroy his shackles. Methos will rise up and kill his captor. Methos will rise up to heights unknown and he will wish he had his brothers at his side. He will wish he had his Kronos. He will rue the day he was ever taught betrayal.

One day, you know, Methos will come to regret this. And on that day, it will be enough.


End file.
